reflections of the training session

Dear Margot,
I feel have spent my weekend quite fruitfully. I went sailing yesterday and today, managed to do some studying but not as much as i'd liked to have done. as in my previous entry,yesterday, i sailed quite badly and could not control the boat properly as the wind was extremely strong. Well, today Uncle Tony's squad trained with the national squad. I sailed quite well finishing 12th, 12th, 10th, 14th, 12th wehn i finished 12th on every race, it semmed to be that the same 11 people were always in front of me and i could not seem to catch up with them which left me puzzled to what were they doing that i was not. all of us were surfing waves, all of us were sailing the same design of boat and spars. this was quite demoralising. to make matters worse, during the race when i was 14th, i was in the top 10but unfortunately, the wind shifted drastically for a full 3 minutes and then gusted alot. it was very upsetting to have found that i was on the wrong side of the course and was trying hard to salvage the situation. i somehow sailed really well on the down wind leg of the race but to complete the picture i just simply had to capsize as i was gybing round the bottom buoy and feel so so idiotic as i was seeing many other sailors overtake me and i was swimming around uprighting my poor boat. Like some of the other sailors in the byte class, i have a small build, am under the optimum weight for the byte and am quite short. however, i have to be satisfied with because there is no way i can change my build. I think the only way i can be able to handle the boat better is to become fitter so i can hike longer and harder as well as control the boat more efficiently. i think that will be difficult as it is hard to find time to work out. so far, the only excercise i get is walking the dog and going running. that is helping me to improve my stamina but it comes with a price which is losing weight. losing weight is not good because i am already very much underweight for the boat i sail( byte) well. i will have to think of a solution to the problem as soon as possible. I do not want to be so heavy that light air sailing is difficult. anyway i was just thinking and wondering, what makes a national sailor so good? how did they achieve their standard? i am pretty much deep in thought. well. at least i am begining to be able to tack faster and surf waves for longer which will help me during regattas if the wind is strong and the water is choppy. but still in strong wind, there are still many national and club sailors who beat me.

Yours,
An Ren